Wonk Convergence
By Dylan Matthews - Nov 5th, 2008 at 1:20 pmOne of the more pernicious memes as the election drew to a close was that President Obama will not be able to enact a progressive economic agenda once in office. This line of reasoning posits that pressure from newly-elected Blue Dogs in the Congress and the centrist financier class of the party will pull him toward more moderate, fiscally conservative policies. As Simon Rosenberg put it, there will be “a battle between a politics of investment versus a politics of austerity.”
If anything could belie this prediction, it would be a high-profile example of collaboration between leaders of the centrist and labor liberal wings of the party. Like, say, Robert Rubin and Jared Bernstein, coauthors of a recent op-ed in the New York Times. While they do mention occasional disagreements, there’s more overlap than discord.
As they write, “we both agree that our economic future also requires public investment in critical areas like education, health care, energy, worker training and much else.” They both stress “the fundamental importance of health care reform that expands coverage to more Americans yet constrains costs.” Most surprisingly, they both push hard for more union power, saying that “a true market economy should have true labor markets in which labor and business negotiate as peers,” and strike a similar chord on trade, arguing that “we must recognize that protecting workers is not protectionism.”
There’s a story here, and it isn’t the Rosenberg narrative of a fiscal conservative wing of the Democrats fighting a more progressive wing. It’s the story of Robert Rubin–stalwart of the Goldman Sachs, budget balancing, pro-trade, anti-”big government” wing of the Democrats–shifting leftward on almost every economic issue of significance, including the financial deregulation that he championed in the 1990s.
There’s been a general consensus for some years within Democratic policy-making circles for a more measured trade policy, less focus on deficits, and more social investment through health care reform and other measure. The financial crisis will, as the Rubin-Bernstein op-ed shows, only harden this agreement, and make it easier for Obama to pursue a progressive agenda.
So no, there won’t be “a battle between a politics of investment versus a politics of austerity.” The politics of investment have already won.
Isn’t the fact that Democrats failed to gain 60 votes in the Senate pretty much proof enough that Obama won’t be able to enact a particularly progressive agenda, in economics or most other fields?
I’m not disagreeing with your assessment of the Democrats, I think discussions of such a factional disagreement are overplayed, but as Bush discovered on Social Security, on the big issues it’s hard to get even a few people to switch sides in order to ram things through.
If Stevens and Smith pull off their wins, and especially if Coleman comes out on top, I imagine it’ll make most of the really progressive agenda items unreachable, even with people like Arlen Specter hopping over on a few issues.
Just throwing that out there. Thoughts?
November 5th, 2008 at 1:35 pm